Monday, February 4, 2013

Recently,
my job has been focusing heavily on trying to get customers to take the survey
on the bottom of the receipts they get from us.You see them all the time – it’s that thing located way at the
bottom of the receipt you don’t even think twice about.But really, who could blame you?

Past
the list of products, the money you spent, and the information about how long
you can return something, who cares about a survey?Our time is already filled to the brim with other time-wasters as
it is.We can’t afford to sit in front
of our computer to rate how we enjoyed our visit into Flo’s House Of Doilies
for our three dollar purchase!We have
to get home so we can see the newest American Idol!It’s trials week and everybody knows how
those are the best part!Then after
that, it’s Facebook time to look at all the links our coworkers post and to
creep every single photograph that someone special we’ve had our eye on for
some time.SURVEY? Pfft!!
And it doesn’t matter if the person who helped you out at the store – even if
all they did was ring out your three dollar purchase – was the most amazing
person in the world.I’m not just
talking about somebody who smiled as he or she thanked you for coming in
today.I’m talking about somebody who somehow
resisted the urge to spit in your face despite the maniacal ranting you did
when you couldn’t find that doily you were looking for (he/she found it five
feet from where you were looking).We just
forget to take it or we just don’t want to fill out a ten minute survey about
every tiny detail about your trip into Flo’s store.Forget the fact that it’d probably take closer to three minutes
to complete and not ten.

I
can’t tell you how many people have told me that they’d fill out the survey
because I was, “so helpful, and not like any other salesperson I’ve talked to
at other places,” or some similar platitude.Then, days or weeks later when I decide to look at our store’s comments that
people leave on those surveys, I don’t see anything with my name in it or even
the department I work in.
I’m guilty of it, too.I even tell the
person who mentions the survey to me that I’ll take the survey because they
were so nice.But I never do.I feel bad – it’s certainly not something I
mean to lie about, but it just happens.So, I guess I can’t get too mad at my customers that do the exact
same thing.

The
fact that so many companies try to entice you with hopes of winning gift cards
or other cash prizes if you would just take their surveys seems to not even
matter.You could promise them a chance
at winning a million dollars (and since the odds are better of winning that
than winning a million dollars if you played the Lotto, those odds are pretty
favorable) and you still won’t get people to fill out a ten question survey.It makes me wonder who exactly wins these
prizes.I’ve certainly never heard of
anyone winning these amazing shopping sprees or gift cards at any store other
than one time.When I was first hired
by my company, I saw a video proving somebody supposedly won, but other than
that ONE time, nada.Zip.Zilch.What’s up with that?

Well,
how about the two of us – you and me – change all of that?From here on out, I promise to try really
hard to fill out every single goddamn survey I get on every single goddamn
receipt, no matter how small my purchase was.How about you all do the same?Up for the challenge?

Let’s
leave a little positive feedback for people who are in the shittiest of shitty
jobs, because maybe something nice will happen for them.Maybe they’ll see the comments and it’ll
cheer them up from an otherwise dismal day at work.Perhaps they’ll win something nice for impacting their customers’
experiences.Perhaps karma will even be
kind to us and we’ll get something nice for our troubles like, say, a
shopping spree for hundreds of dollars???
What say you?Let’s put out the
challenge to everyone we know.Let’s go
forth and do something wonderfully small acts of kindness for the sake of our
fellow man or woman.

Right
after I catch up on my Facebooking.More soon from the frontlines...

About Me

A 30-something-year-old who has spent most of my life in retail. In all that time, I've amassed quite a bit of observations on people who shop at, or work for, retail companies. I've been watching and taking notes, people.